By Kirk Boxleitner

A $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce will allow the Port of Port Townsend to purchase a new boat hoist, in addition to retaining at least 171 jobs and attracting $12 million in private investment, according to Port Executive Director Eron Berg and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Cantwell announced the grant on Jan. 25. “Upgrading Port Townsend’s boat yard will help ensure that more local fishing and recreational vessels can get the service they need from nearby marine trades businesses,” said Cantwell, who pointed out that this should “grow port operations.”

While the grant comes from the DOC’s Economic Development Administration, and is set to be matched with $586,459 in local funds, Berg said that the number of jobs retained and private dollars of investment generated by this grant were estimates by the port’s tenants with input from the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op, Haven Boatworks, the Shop Co-Op and ACI Boats.

While a number of major shipyards are privately owned and operated, Berg noted that the Port of Port Townsend hosts resident marine and other service trades that operate independently and “unbundled” from the port itself.

“It’s a unique place, in that it’s an industrial yard with cafes and breweries on site,” Berg said.

Turning specifically to the new boat hoist for which the EDA is providing grant funding, Berg told The Leader that the port currently owns four such mobile travel lifts, which have hauled thousands of boats over the years, with one dating back to 1997.

Not only will the EDA grant pay for the port to replace that 27-year-old boat lift, whose maintenance interrupts scheduled shipyard operations, but its replacement will include a variable width, which Berg and Cantwell agreed should help improve the capacity and efficiency of the port by allowing vessels to be stacked more closely together without sacrificing safety.

“If we can fit more boats into the same amount of space, we can accommodate more business traffic and generate more revenue,” Berg said. “It’s not the port itself that’s a primary generator of revenue, but the independent businesses who do their work here. They account for 20 percent of the employment in Jefferson County.”

Cantwell echoed Berg’s assessment, predicting the new lift would result in more projects, marine trade jobs, and port haul-out revenues by not only creating more space to stack boats, but also reducing the downtime between available windows of work.

In October 2022, Cantwell toured the Point Hudson jetty replacement project and held a roundtable discussion on how to grow the Port Townsend maritime economy, and Berg credited her with helping to secure a $7.1 million EDA grant to fund half of the $14.1 million breakwater and jetty replacement project.

“Support such as this is vitally important for us, for fostering maritime trades and commerce,” Berg said.